Miller Magazine Issue: 112 April 2019

89 INTERVIEW APRIL 2019 markets to sail through this period without taking any hit,” he said, when commenting on the period he assumed the role. He added that many people showed great interest in onli- ne sales via e-PTT (e-post) since January and pulses, chickpea, and green lentil were sold in regulated sale points around the country since February. The following is the full interview with Ahmet Güldal, Gene- ral Manager of Turkish Grain Board (TMO). Mr. Güldal, you assumed the role of CEO and General Manager in a very challenging time. When you assumed the role, the wheat production began to fall in the world while the price was increasing, and there has been fluctua- tion in currency exchanges. You took important decisions to balance the market as TMO. Can you tell us about your works in this period? Yes, there had been sometimes real and sometimes specula- tive activities because of exchange rate fluctuation, increase in exchange rate, and climatic reasons during this year. The main duty of TMO is to prevent the prices of cereals and pulses from going under normal price for producers while from going ab- normally high for consumers, take regulatory measures in the market of these products, and manage duties for other agricul- tural products other than cereals and pulses by the President. We monitor domestic and international prices of products that are within our scope, and if necessary, we intervene in markets by announcing buying and selling prices or by not an- nouncing or by announcing lately. This season was particularly challenging because of fluctuati- ons in production and macroeconomic developments. Nevert- heless, we see positive results from our decisions and arrange- ments and helped markets to sail through this period without taking any hit. What policies did you implement on a product basis? In Wheat and Barley; • At a very early date, we announced the purchase prices of wheat and barley, and in total, we purchased 2.44 million tons of cereal from 61 thousand producers. • After our purchases, our wheat stock reached 3.6 million tons with 1.3 million tons of turnover. • We started our wheat sales in early August taking into ac- count the fluctuations in the market because of the decrease in production and the increase in the exchange rate, and so far we have sold about 3.1 million tons of wheat. • We did not raise our sales prices between August and Oc- tober; from November to January we applied only 20 TL / ton rise per month; we kept our sales prices stable in February and March. • We reinforced our stocks with imports; we have not imple- mented any increase in imported product sales prices. • In order to carry out our market regulation task effectively and on time, we have been granted automatic import authori- zation every year. (The authorization for 1 million tons of whe- at, 700 thousand tons of barley and corn, 100 thousand tons of paddy and 100 thousand tons of pulses is used only when the product supply is finished.) • We carried out a sale to small and middle-sized flour facto- ries with 90-days deferred sale without applying interest. • We have sold low-quality wheat for the feed industry. • We have transferred the imported barley to the domestic areas to meet the needs of our breeders and growers, and we started to sell barley to our feeders and growers since January. • We started maturity practice in our sales since March. • To date, we have sold 94,000 tons of barley. In Maize; • We announced our purchase price as 950 TL / ton on 14 October 2018 and we bought 184 thousand tons of maize. • Since January, we have reinforced our stocks with imports. • We started to sell maize in stock at a price of 1.075 TL / ton. • We have sold 208 thousand tons of maize so far. In Paddy/Rice; • On November 14, 2018, we announced 2.600 TL /Ton for 60 output Osmancık, 2.400 TL/Ton for Ronaldo and Vasco, and 2.200 TL/Ton for Luna; so, we bought 432 tons of paddy. • We reinforced our stocks with import since December. • For our consumers, we have started to sell rice at a price of 4.50-5.70 TL / kg that is 20-40% lower than market prices so that customers can buy rice at an affordable price. • We also delivered domestic rice from our stocks to our people via regulated sale points. • So far, we have sold 5 tons of paddy and 8 tons of rice. In Pulses; • After 25 years of hiatus, we have intervened for chickpeas and green lentils in order to prevent the price decline for the producer’s benefit due to excess supply. • As part of that, we bought 96 thousand tons of chickpeas and 14 thousand tons of green lentils. • As of October, we have started to sell the products for retail markets below than natural and market prices.